


Show Me a Hero (And I'll Write You a Tragedy)

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellamy PoV, F/M, Greek Myths, Heavy Angst, Heavy-handed mythology references, Heroes, Lots of Angst, Past Violence, Post 6x02, Sad Bellamy, Season Six Spoilers, Violence, guilty bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 07:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18752230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Bellamy Blake always wanted to be a hero; he just never thought about what it would cost him.It had been years since he dropped from the Ark -- wars had been won and victories had been claimed and losses had been suffered. And somewhere along the way, Bellamy realized that Heroes were far from perfect.(Post Season 6, episode 2 -- Bellamy's thoughts after waking up)





	Show Me a Hero (And I'll Write You a Tragedy)

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes**  
>  Spoilers for Season 6, episode 2
> 
>    
> Mainly Rated M (went back and forth) because talks about a spousal homicide (from Greek mythology, but still)
> 
> **Warnings**
> 
>  
> 
> Dark/angst
> 
> References to choking 
> 
> References to violence, both in the show, and in greek myths
> 
> Blood mention 
> 
> Husband killing wife (Greek Myth)
> 
> Bellamy is in a very bad headspace

Back when he slept among the stars and whispered borrowed stories in the dark to a child who never should have existed, Bellamy Blake dreamed of being a hero.

He dreamed of swords and shields, of maidens and kings -- he dreamed that one day, he’d rise above his lot as a lowborn, common citizen and reveal some great and powerful destiny that had been waiting in the hands of the Fates, waiting like threat that would one day be spun into reality. 

When he grew to be too old to ask his tired mother for stories, he relied on his own memories to maintain the myths that lived inside of him.

Heroes saved their families, after all;, but no power came to him the day his mother was ripped away from him, away from oxygen and safety and her family, all for the sin of loving too much, and too many. No god-born surge of magic came to his aid as his mother died, his sister dragged away by unfeeling men who were not cruel, but were all the more evil for their apathy. 

But still, he dreamed of being a hero.

_ Would he be Perseus _ ?, he mused silently to himself on those days he pushed barrels of waste from the better parts of the Ark. Would he wear the winged sandals of Hermes and wield the still-bleeding head of the Gorgon to rescue a princess from a monster of the sea, and his kingdom from a monster of political ambition?

He fell like a shooting star to the earth, a man dying and maybe already dead at his hands, following his family, swearing to protect her no matter what, because that’s what heroes did. They protected the people they loved.

_ Maybe he’d become Theseus _ , he thought, scrambling for his life on the scarred ground, traps and obstacles and death lurking around every corner. Theseus slayed the Minotaur, but he made mistakes. He hurt his family, but he was still allowed to be king. Bellamy met a girl with hair brighter than the sun, who smiled even brighter -- and smiled all too rarely -- and remembered that Theseus didn’t marry the woman he loved.

He left Ariadne on an island because she didn’t need him. Not when a god saw her and wanted her for his own; the girl with yellow hair loved someone else, and he kept his head down because heroes didn’t scream and beg and cry when the people they needed didn’t need them back. His heart became a little harder, at least on the surface. Under that shell raged a softness he could never destroy, not when the girl with hair like a princess still smiled (and sometimes, she even smiled at him, and he told himself that was enough), not when there were still wars to fight. 

Bellamy became better at leaving the girl he loved behind, until one day he left her behind for good and spent the entire first year with his hand pressed up to glass, staring down at a burning planet. He’d returned to the stars, like the heroes whose souls were cut out and placed among the galaxies. 

He became a constellation, etched into a sky that overlooked the planet where the girl with yellow hair had died, all because a person who was meant to be a hero had left her behind.

Bellamy became stronger, learned to love differently, reforged a family from what small embers of humanity still burned. He could never quiet the soft voice of  _ what if I’m a hero _ , because he was smart, but it took him a while to learn his lesson, especially when the smartest person he’d ever met was gone from the universe, already welcomed into the halls of heroes, forgiven for whatever sins she thought she’d committed, the ones he’d forgiven years ago, but she never had.

He grew stronger on the Ring, tougher, more dedicated than ever to the family he had found, the one they had made.

But, the girl with yellow hair was still alive; like Persephone, he thought, refusing to die in the middle of Hell, flourishing and blossoming and reigning over Death itself but looking, every step of the way, like spring itself.

It became more difficult, being a hero. Mistakes were made, worse than before. He nearly knew death, felt death when the girl with sun in her hair and death in her blood turned her back on him, almost like she could tell what the Fates had in store for their hero. 

Because he’d always been a hero, he realized grimly on a new planet, one even more dedicated than the last to killing them.

Murphy dying. Shaw dead. Octavia broken. Abby furious.   
Clarke.

_ God, Clarke. _

Bellamy sat on a low stone wall on the planet that had promised salvation and delivered something very different, and he looked at the girl with golden hair, the traitor, the warrior, the one who had saved them all and paid everything to do it. She’d been a hero all along; that had never been a question. 

But, he sat at a distance from her, afraid of her orbit and what he might do or say if he were caught in it one last time. He watched purple and red blossom across her skin, the way he imagined flowers might unfurl to the sun, tended to by Chloris. He watched her suffer quietly, her small hands folded into fists on her knees, watched the blood slip from a nick on her neck that she’d refused attention for, watched it splash on a canvas that he had painted.

Of course he’d been a hero.

Hadn’t it been a hero, after all, who’d been driven mad so easily? A hero -- the most heroic one, if the stories were anything to go off of, and stories were all Bellamy had sometimes -- who had seized his wife in a fit of rage and killed her in seconds? 

Bellamy didn’t need to wonder what it felt like to be Hercules, and he certainly didn’t need mythic strength to figure it out. Not anymore.

Hercules had wrapped his hands around his wife’s delicate throat. He had killed the person he loved above everyone. He had woken up, minutes later, to find his children dead. His wife, dead. Megara never opened her beautiful eyes again, and it had been Hercules’ fault. Hera had something to do with it, but Bellamy knew now that Hera’s curse had done nothing to alleviate a second of his guilt, nothing to spare Hercules the knowledge that he was responsible for hurting the person who loved him. Trusted him. Needed him.

Bruises darkened around Clarke’s throat, and his own throat burned in sympathy, and from the gas she’d been forced to use to stop him from killing her. She’d given him a single smile, the kind of treasure he’d once hoarded like a dragon and its gold, once, when they’d settled to rest for a few hours, but she hadn’t looked at him since.

And he couldn’t look away.

Bellamy couldn’t look away from the reminder of what he’d done, what he’d almost lost, what he needed more than he’d ever needed anything, even after six years and another family and his own protests to the contrary.

Bellamy couldn’t look away from the reminder of what it really meant to be a hero.

He’d always wanted to be one --

And now he knew he was.

Doomed, cursed, and violent. That was all heroes were in the end. No matter the stories, no matter the glory. Heroes won, and then they fell twice as hard. 

Bellamy Blake had spent six years becoming a hero, and Fate had carried him to a natural conclusion.

 

He didn’t want to be a hero anymore.

 

He’d settle for just one more of her smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for Bellarke, but tonight's episode had me feeling a sort of way, so naturally I had to sit and spew out this 1300 word angst fest.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading??!?


End file.
